The Supreme Court directed authorities
not to initiate any ‘action’ against 40 lakh persons
left out of the draft Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on
July 30.

·The court ordered the central government, in
consultation with State NRC Coordinator to frame a ‘fair’ standard operating
procedure (SOP) to deal with the claims and objections of those who did not
find their names in the draft NRC.

The govt
said that no coercive action would be taken against persons who have not
figured in the draft NRC.

Background:

The final draft of the NRC shows 2.9 crore names, out of the total 3.29 crore who applied in Assam.

·The names of 40.07 lakh
applicants were not included in the historic document, considered proof of
Assamese identity

·. The first draft NRC was published in Jan,
2018 showed the names of 1.9 crore people.

Key Words: NRC,
Supreme Court

STA-1 status

India has welcomed the decision of the U.S.
government to grant it the status of a trading partner equivalent to its
closest allies in the NATO.

·The U.S. Government’s decision to move India into
Tier-1 of the Department of Commerce’s Strategic Trade Authorisation
license exception, is a logical culmination to India’s
designation as a Major Defence Partner of the U.S.

·In 2016, the U.S. had recognised
India as a “Major Defence Partner” but the STA-1 status will open an entire
array of high-tech weaponries that are available to the countries whose
security interests are closely linked with American security priorities.

·Apart from India, other Asian countries in the STA-1
list are Japan and South Korea.

·This step will further facilitate trade and
technology collaboration in defence and high technology areas.

Key Words: STA 1 Status, Indo-U.S defence cooperation

Economy

IMF should not help Pakistan pay off Chinese lenders, warns Pompeo

Why
in News?

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that any potential International Monetary
Fund (IMF) bailout for Pakistan’s new government should not provide funds to
pay off Chinese lenders.

·Mr. Pompeo
said that the U.S. looked forward to engagement with the government of
Pakistan’s expected new Prime Minister, Imran Khan,
but said there was “no rationale” for a bailout that pays off Chinese loans to
Pakistan.

·Pakistan is struggling to avert a
currency crisis that has presented the new government with its biggest
challenge.

·The country, which already has around
$5 billion in loans from China and its banks to fund major infrastructure
projects, had sought another $1 billion in loans to stabilise
its plummeting foreign currency reserves.

Key
Words – Pakistan, USA,
China, IMF, bailouts.

Economy

Centre imposes 25% safeguard duty on import of solar cells

Why
in News?

The Centre issued a notification
putting into effect a safeguard duty of 25% on import of solar cells from China
and Malaysia between July 30, 2018, and July 29, 2019.

·The duty reduces to 20% for six months
from July 30, 2019, and further to 15% in the subsequent half year.

·The decision by the government follows
a long deliberation by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies, which
recommended the safeguard duty structure after considering an application by
Indian solar cell manufacturers.

·While the move is aimed at helping the
domestic solar cell manufacturing sector, it could affect existing projects
dependent on cheap imports.

₹3 per unit

·The solar bid tariffs largely remained
below ₹3 per unit in calendar year 2018 varying between ₹2.44 per
unit and ₹2.75 per unit, with expectation of favourable
price movement in PV modules following the policy changes in China.

·The imposition of safeguard duty is
likely to increase the bid tariffs to ₹2.9-3.1 per unit for the upcoming
bids.

According
to ‘Telangana Social Development Report-2018: Gender,
Access and Well Being’ brought out by the Council for Social Development (CSD),
Southern Chapter.

·Incidence of crime, of which declining sex ratio is
also an indicator, is the highest in Hyderabad and Ranga
Reddy, the most urbanised and most literate districts.

·The crime against women in families far exceeds other
forms of violence.

·The report provides baseline information drawn from
official data on a wide range of themes with special focus on gender to “enable
the Telangana government to arrive at evidence-based
policies to address several issues raised under each of the themes”.

·The report highlights the “deep-rooted bias” against
women and children that was revealed through adverse sex ratio at birth,
disproportionately large number of widows, declining female work participation,
and a large number of women into domestic duties.

·The report mentions a pronounced gap between boys and
girls in higher education and that a large number of girls, ST girls in
particular, walk to school, and that dropouts are high when distance is more.

·In fact, there
is greater proportion of non-literate women working and most literate women in
non-working category!

There
is also a sharp decline in female labour-force
between the age group of 15 and 24 between 2004-05 and 2011-12 when compared to
the all-India level indicating a complex array of changing nature of
agriculture, reducing their employment prospects.

Key Words:Telangana Social
Development Report 2018, Women

B-Hub at Genome Valley

Telanganagovernment, plans to set up
B-Hub for biotech and biopharma sector in Genome
Valley.

·B-Hub will be the first-of-its-kind initiative in the
country, aimed at providing much needed support to the biopharma
research and development activities featuring a scale-up manufacturing facility
along with a turnkey incubator, labspace module at
GLP grade within a built-up area of 40,000 sq ft.

·Establishment of such an end-to-end biopharma scale-up manufacturing facility would give
domestic firms the required impetus to compete with Korean, Chinese and French
companies who had taken lead in biopharma innovation.

·Companies that are in early stage clinical development
but lacked the requisite expertise and resources to navigate the complexities
associated with business planning, cell line development, process development,
technology, and/or regulatory and risk assessment, would leverage B-Hub
facility to help break down roadblocks and improve the likelihood of commercial
success.

The
estimated project cost of B-Hub is Rs. 60 crore and
the facility is to be set up through public-private partnership in Genome
Valley, which is the country’s first organised
cluster for life sciences R&D and clean manufacturing activities.

.Key Words: B-Hub, Telangana

ANDHRA PRADESH

YSR horticulture
university

Why in News?

Dr.
Y.S.R. Horticulture University of Andhra Pradesh has been ranked the best
horticulture university by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).

·The ranking places the university
above all the other horticultural universities in the country.

·The top rank has been accorded to the
University based on its infrastructure, extension and research and development.

·While it was given the overall 11th
rank, the University of Horticulture Sciences, Bagalkot,
has been given the 20th rank. The Dr Yaswant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan, has been given the 38th rank by the ICAR.

‘Programmes
farmer-friendly’

·The research programmes
of the university were very friendly to farmers and the extension work was also
very good, the University’s Vice Chancellor said.

·From the 26th rank a couple of years
ago, its ranking improved tremendously in just a short time.

Strong
in research

·The
17 research stations made the university very strong in infrastructure and the
areas of research like germplasm collection,
evaluation and conservation, dry land horticulture, etc were all targeted at
making horticulture more profitable.